• Social Media

  Stop Paying for New Food Shoots — How I Turned Old Photos into Social Posts That Actually Drive Bookings (from someone who’s managed restaurant socials for years)

  Posted by imaginekarlson on September 12, 2025 at 9:52 am

  

  If you're a restaurant owner: you do not need a new photoshoot every month. I used to run social for multiple restaurants, then built tools to automate this stuff — and the number of owners burning thousands on fresh photography for every campaign is wild. Here’s a straightforward, practical workflow I use to turn existing food photos into consistent, professional content that gets attention and drives covers.

  What to do with the photos you already have

  • Pick the winners: go through your library and pull the 20–50 best shots. Look for clear composition, good color, food that looks fresh. One strong photo trumps ten meh ones.

  • Crop & reframe for formats: make a vertical version for Reels/Stories (9:16), a square for feed (1:1), and a horizontal for ads/website. Small reframes give you multiple assets from one shot.

  • Use a single editing preset: pick or create one Lightroom/phone preset and batch-apply. Consistent color/contrast makes your feed look intentional, not messy.

  • Create 3–5 variations from each image:

    • Close-up crop
    • Ingredient or prep detail
    • Branded overlay (menu item + price or CTA)
    • Animated version (subtle pan/zoom or parallax)
    • Before/after plating carousel

  • Make short video content from stills: use a simple editor (CapCut, iMovie, Premiere Rush) to add Ken Burns zooms, quick cuts, music, captions, and a voiceover describing the dish or a special. Reels made from photos often outperform static posts because they take up more screen and hold attention.

  • Add context & micro-stories: pair a photo with a 1–2 sentence caption about the ingredient, chef tip, or a guest moment. People book when they feel a little story, not just a pretty plate.

  Practical low-cost tools and tricks

  • Lightroom Mobile or VSCO for batch presets
  • Canva for overlays, simple templates, and resized exports
  • Remove.bg for quick background swaps if you want a clean product shot
  • CapCut for turning photos into short Reels with motion and captions
  • Flixel or similar for cinemagraphs if you want subtle motion
  • Use phone “portrait” photos + AI upscalers to salvage older low-res images

  How to schedule this without extra workload

  • Build a 2-week content bank: 10–14 posts made from your existing shots. Rotate them with small edits.
  • Use templates for story promos, menu highlights, and event posts so you’re not designing from scratch.
  • Repurpose one hero photo across channels with minor tweaks: feed post, story with sticker, pinned tweet, email header.
  • Test one CTA per post (book/reserve/order) and track which style drives bookings.

  Things I see owners get wrong

  • Trying to make every image perfect — inconsistent but honest content often wins over sterile perfection.
  • Reusing the same caption/call-to-action across platforms — tweak messaging by channel.
  • Thinking video = production. Short, raw clips or animated photos are usually better and cheaper.

  If you’ve got a pile of photos and no idea what to do with them, I can help you triage and turn them into a month of content in a few hours. If you want examples, workflow templates, or a quick review of your photo library, drop a comment or DM — I’d love to help.

  imaginekarlson replied 6 hours, 59 minutes ago 1 Member · 0 Replies
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